In Warm Blood
by Magic-Amethyst80
Summary: Wolf get a surprise visit from Cole while at an underground market in the Nine Kingdoms. This trip brings back some unhappy memories for Cole.
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note** This takes place approximately one month after my previous story, What Lies Within._

He knew he shouldn't have been there. It was a bad place, a very bad place, an evil place. But if it was Virginia's destiny to be a witch in her own world, there were supplies in the _marketplace_ on the far end edge of the troll kingdom that could not be obtained elsewhere. While he always hated having to use magic, in some situations there was simply no choice.

He inhaled deeply and was overwhelmed by the scent of dwarf moss, troll dust, dragon dung and other substances. These were substances that were difficult to obtain in the Nine Kingdoms and impossible to procure where he was living now. If he were going to go to this marketplace, now was the best time. There was a full moon tonight, and his wolfy senses were at their peak. Huff puff, he would be back in Virginia's world by sundown, when his cycles were due to fully kick in. He shuddered at the thought of what might happen if he didn't get back in time. What would that Charmed One's husband, or was it ex husband do to him?

For that matter, what would the Charmed Ones do to him? Ever since the incident last month, when he had accidentally hurt his precious wife, Virginia, the three sisters, Piper, Paige and Phoebe, had been doing all they could to keep her away from him. They often came up with excuses to keep her out late, where they lived in San Francisco. San Francisco was in a different time zone, so if it was late in San Francisco, it was later in New York.

Whenever Virginia had a bit of free time, there was a lesson Piper had to teach her right then and there. If that wasn't the case, then there was something that they had to vanquish and absolutely needed Virginia's help. Someone would always volunteer to baby sit for Randell. It made him happy that his child was wearing them thin, although he hated losing the quality time with his cub and his mate for life.

He had attempted to speak to them on several occasions, to try to explain what happened that night but they would hear nothing of it. To them he was a monster, a monster just as evil as the demons, they vanquished on a regular basis. He had done what he could to help them on a number of occasions, tricking a demon into drinking a dangerous poison before she could harm his precious Virginia and the Charmed Ones. Then there were the two warlocks who managed to find out about Virginia's mirror. Placing it in grandma's house in the room with the hot tub and providing two glasses of Merripip's famous hard cider imported from the nine kingdoms was the perfect trap. No one missed the warlocks, _or guessed the secret ingredient that in the stew that was the next day's dinner special at Grill on the Park, the restaurant owned by him and his wife._

He quietly strolled passed the stands looking for any good deals and sniffing for anyone, or anything that might pose a threat. This was a dark and dingy place, located inside a cave, the floors were covered in dirt, and the creatures were even dirtier.

A rather striking gentleman was selling cauldrons filled with gypsy slime, and plain looking magic spell books, nothing of interest to him. His keen sense of smell then picked up the scent of magic pigs; the kind that didn't exist in Virginia's world. He turned to follow the scent, and saw them, standing upright, hands tied behind their backs, apples securely placed in their mouths preventing them from speaking. Looks of terror were reflected in their eyes. He knew he was here to buy supplies, but it had been so long since he had had fresh pork. The seller happily looked him in the eye, "One for forty gold wendells, two for sixty, three for seventy." Wolf glanced down at the sack of money he had with him. He had not brought much and knew he needed other things, but the allure of fresh meat was so tempting. Just as he was reaching for the sack, he heard a whisper in his ear, "thought you had given up sentient beings?"

Wolf jumped back and nervously glanced around, startled upon hearing something muttered into his ear. It was the demon, Cole. Where did he come from? How did he find him?


	2. Chapter 2

_Wolf jumped back and nervously glanced around, startled upon hearing something muttered into his ear. It was the demon, Cole. Where did he come from? How did he find him?_

He turned around to find the demon behind him. "Didn't think you were the type to back out of a deal," said Cole slyly. "Although if you were going to hide, you've certainly chosen an interesting place," he said looking around the market.

In retrospect he probably should not have been surprised. This half demon seemed out to prove something to the Charmed One with whom he was in what seemed like an on again off again romance.

"It isn't the full moon yet," Wolf defiantly responded. "It is about twelve hours until sundown."

"In New York," interrupted the demon. "Who knows when sundown starts here, and, I should add lupine cycles have been known to peak before, or after sundown," he said looking Wolf in the eye. "I've seen the full moon on a clear day, and I'm sure you have felt its effects while it is still daylight."

Wolf nodded.

They quietly strolled along, Cole keeping a close eye on Wolf, who was on the lookout for any good deals and Cole himself looking for anything that could potentially be useful.

"Help us, help us," Wolf heard small birds in cages uttering . He thought of Virginia's actions the last time he had encountered those birds. This market was certainly not a place to take her. It was the kind of place that most people from Virginia's world would find offensive. "Think the Charmed Ones would like this place?" Wolf asked sarcastically.

Cole let out a quiet laugh, "I don't want to know," he said as he watched an angry clockmaker attempting to shove small birds into the tops of clocks, "although I would be curious to find out. How much time would you give them here?"

"Hmm," he scratched his temple. "From our last visit here, it seemed that they love old time hairstyling." He glanced in the direction of a gypsy beautician.

"You are right,. Phoebe and Paige have been getting their hair done at ren fairs recently."

Wolf then glanced toward the birds the gypsies had been selling, "Think they would be able to pass up the desperate pleas of those cute little birdies?"

Cole shook his head, "Phoebe and Paige are both vegetarians."

"Five minutes," Wolf responded, then stopped as Cole turned toward a witch selling fruits and various other baked good. This witch was particularly infamous.

Cole approached the witch, anxiously looking over the items she was selling. In the back of her booth there was a shack made of gingerbread. "Ginger snap?" she offered Cole, who took one while examining the witch's offerings.

"Don't you know you are allergic to ginger," Wolf interrupted as he grabbed the cookie from Cole's hand and threw it down on the ground. He knew that this might not be the brightest of moves, taking something out of the hand of a fire thrower. However, the horror of what might have happened had Cole eaten the cookie was unimaginable. The witch gave him an angry glance, but Wolf growled at her, showing his teeth and making her retreat back into her house.

Cole glanced angrily at Wolf, "It's just a cookie, and I'm the former source of all evil. What do you think is going to happen?"

Wolf then quizzically looked at Cole. "You've never heard the legend? What becomes of those who eat part of her house?"

"No," he said emphatically then paused. He then remembered the mysterious disappearance of Rubethor, a high ranking member of his demonic brotherhood, who had gone to this dimension never to return. "I haven't," he replied.

"You would have become a gingerbread man," Wolf replied sarcastically, "I'm sure your ex wife would love that. I guarantee they would have trouble coming up with a spell to reverse it. Additionally, you seem like the type with a reputation to uphold and turning into a cookie probably wouldn't do much in the way of bolstering it."

Cole laughed. "Believe me that would not have happened," he said dismissing Wolf's accusation.

Wolf placed his arm around the half demon who didn't seem comfortable being touched. "Just remember not to take candy from strangers around here," said Wolf, who promptly removed his arm and turned away. A man was selling giant elfin slugs that secreted a secret ingredient necessary for making potent poisons. He took out some money and made a purchase.

"Do you really need the entire case?" questioned Cole grimacing at what Wolf was purchasing.

"No, I just need one, or two, or three; the rest will go for a lot on EBay,"

Cole then gave him a curious glance. "EBay?"

Wolf scratched his temple, "yes, EBay."

"As in the online auction site in our dimension?" questioned Cole grimacing.. The Charmed Ones would not stop chiding him and Virginia about how important it was to keep the existence of all things magic in their world secret. Wolf assumed Cole might have held the same beliefs about keeping magic under wraps. But if people who obviously knew what they were purchasing shelled out big bucks for magical objects, what harm could be done? He would make sure that whoever bought it wasn't evil.

"You would be amazed what you can get for things from here on there, and how much stuff will go for," Wolf responded, "Two weeks ago I bought a case of rings hand made by elves and had all of them sold by yesterday." He then noticed that Cole was distracted. He turned his gaze away from Wolf and started staring in the direction of the man selling old spell books. Wolf followed as Cole approached the booth; then began to carefully examine what the man was selling. He had settled on one tattered old book.

Cole thumbed through it, an expression on his face that Wolf could not quite discern. The seller approached Cole. "Interested in that cauldron over there, once owned by a powerful gypsy. She is gone now, but you can have her power for 800 gold Wendells, and your immortal soul. I also have a great deal on this pure silver bow and arrow."

"No thanks," responded Cole, who continued to pore over the used spell book.

"Ah, the Barrington book of shadows," the seller responded, "Very strong line of witches until about ninety five years ago when they were…"

"….vanquished, by a powerful demon" finished Cole as he raised his gaze from the book. "How did you happen to find this?"

"Uh," the seller said trying to think of something, as he looked Cole in the eye. Then, a sudden look of fear appeared upon the man's face, "B- B-Belthazor, didn't expect to see you here; last thing I heard you had been…" the man suddenly fell silent, and then vanished with a poof. Cole quickly pulled some type of knife out of where the man's chest once was. A few of the shoppers at the market turned their heads to see what was happening after the poof, then continued to go about their ways. Cole then picked up the book, and glanced towards Wolf. "Feel free to take anything you need," he said as he examined the rest of what the man had been selling.

"You shouldn't have done that," said Wolf, with a shocked tone in his voice.

Cole glanced at Wolf guessing what he was thinking. "He wasn't from around here."

"But still, aren't you afraid of any, uh, repercussions?" asked Wolf. He noticed Cole was clenching the tattered old book What was so special about that one book in particular?


	3. Chapter 3

Wolf followed Cole outside the Marketplace, not wanting to linger there after the event that had just taken place. What was so special about that book that would make him react that way? He then took a closer look at it and began to realize what it was, a book of shadows, a type of journal kept by a magical family as a general guide to magic.

From what he knew, these books were kept secret, heavily guarded so that no one outside the family could get anywhere near them. It was well known never to attempt to touch one, because of the curses one might incur. These days magical practitioners throughout the Nine Kingdoms had mostly abandoned the idea of keeping books of shadows. Having a secret book containing spells known only to them, in addition to lists of potential enemies, their strengths, weaknesses and ways of killing them, made a family a target for all kinds of beings coming after the heavily guarded information contained in these books. In addition, losing one of these books could practically ruin a magical family. It just simply wasn't worth having all one's chickens in the same house.

Rumor had it that certain bounty hunters made their way collecting these books by hunting down the members of the families possessing them. Most of the time the bounty hunters were unsuccessful, but a few were. How they were able to do this without incurring any kind of curse was a bit of a mystery. There were a number of secrets and risks involved in "book collecting."

The Huntsman hired by Virginia's mother was well known for eliminating certain prominent magical families in the nine kingdoms by stealing their books of shadows. However Wolf had been all around most of the Queen's old castles, and these books were never found.

They quietly strolled along, through the forest. Wolf not exactly sure where Cole was headed. He then remembered a bit of his last encounter the demonic form, followed by an admission, "_For over a hundred years, I hunted down witches, innocent witches, just like your wife._"

It suddenly dawned on Wolf why Cole was so obsessed with this book. It also worried him that having a magical object like that around was not safe, especially in the presence of a person who had obtained it by less than honorable means. Was there any type of curse associated with ending a line of witches?


	4. Chapter 4

_Wolf then looked Cole in the eye and calmly asked, "Why is this book so important to you; that book of shadows that I'm guessing once belonged to the Barrington family? And will having that book with us attract any kind of bad luck?"_

"_It shouldn't," responded Cole. He then suspiciously asked, "what do you know about the Barrington family? I don't think they ever set foot in this dimension?"_

Wolf stood his ground and responded, "they lost their book of shadows somewhere along the line, and you are bothered by the fact that someone was trying to sell it. The last time I met you, you said something about a career hunting witches, so it isn't the most difficult thing to put two and two together and guess the fate of that family." He paused, before asking the inevitable, "Are you embarrassed that someone was selling your hard earned work in a second hand book market?"

Cole was then silent, a grimace on his face. He looked Wolf in the eye, "I'm not embarrassed about anything; you want this book it is yours?" he said nonchalantly as he handed it to Wolf who quickly retracted in fear.

"No thanks," responded Wolf, "but I am curious to know," he paused, "what did happen to that family?"

"It was almost a hundred years ago," Cole sighed, as the expression on his face changed to one of sadness. "I was on the verge of pledging a number of demonic brotherhoods, factions in the underworld to which various demons belonged. If one doesn't belong to one, they don't rank very highly. Because I was half human, I had a very hard time being accepted by any of the factions. I needed to do something big, that would impress them, show that I was as capable as those without human halves."

"I certainly understand that," Wolf replied as he sat down against a tree stump and opened up a bottle of water from Virginia's world. Cole then proceeded to sit down next to him.

"At the time the Barringtons, who lived in Massachusetts, were one of the most powerful magical families around. They were responsible for vanquishing a number of high-level demons. They managed to take down head of the Brotherhood of the Thorn, one of the most respected Brotherhoods in the Underworld. One of them even got close to vanquishing the Source."

"Go on," said Wolf. He felt like asking what exactly "The Source," was. He had heard Cole referring to it numerous times, even admitting that he briefly had that position. Wolf assumed that it was the leader of the underworld but didn't feel like interrupting the story Cole was telling.

"Well, I learned that one demon, Dalnor was going to attempt to take out the Barrington family. I took advantage of this information, and enlisted with the local sheriff's department, their numbers had recently decreased and they desperately needed new recruits. It didn't take me very long to rise to the position of deputy."

"The night Dalnor came to attempt to get the Barrington's book of shadows, I showed up as the trusty local law enforcement agent, took out Dalnor, and saved the family. Being witches who constantly needed things covered up, they were very quick to open up to me, the sheriff's deputy, especially their two young daughters, Estelle and Catherine. I gradually romanced the eldest of the two, Estelle, and became very close with her branch of the family. It was actually pretty nice, having a place where, for once," he paused, paused, "I was accepted."

"Were you in love with her?" asked Wolf.


	5. Chapter 5

Were you in love with her?" asked Wolf.

"I don't know." Cole looked down at the ground. "We were very close for a period of time, and I though about giving it all up, and becoming one of the Barringtons. They were a good family, out to help people, and Estelle was willing to love me unquestionably. We spent a lot of time getting close with one another; long days spent on trips all over the state, and to the nearby cities such as Boston and New York.

"I eventually ended up proposing to her. To this day I'm still not sure why, whether it was because I loved her, or because I wanted to get as close as I could to the family. There were times I gave serious thought as to what it would be like to spend the rest of my life with her. In addition, in those days weddings were supposed to be white, and I had spent a significant amount of time thinking about what our honeymoon would be like.

"Unfortunately word got around that I had infiltrated the family. Taking them out meant a lot for what you might say was my career."

"The family threw us an engagement party." Cole said sadly, his voice on the verge of cracking. "I put something in the wine they served, and the entire family ended up dying that night. I held Estelle's hand as she passed on, and promised to find out what was happening. Afterwards I covered it up with the sheriff's department, so no one would suspect anything. I made it look like a simple, unintentional case of food poisoning.

"Raynor, made me his protégé, and was extremely pleased with my work. The Barrington book of shadows became one of their most prized possessions, and I quickly ascended to a very high level within the brotherhood.

"For years I tried to convince myself that I wasn't in love with Estelle, that the feelings I had were nothing. I later thought a part of me had just died the night I slew the Barrington family and that I did not have the capacity to love. Offing them was a means to an end, and got me what I had wanted. But these days, now that I have changed, it is something I still think about. What would have happened had I not poisoned the Barringtons, and simply had chosen to live with the family?"

Wolf glanced at Cole sympathetically and said in a low knowing tone, "Well, you didn't; you made the choice you did, and there is no way you could go back and simply change it." He paused, "What you did was your destiny. You wouldn't be the same, pers… being you are today, had you made a different choice. It seems you learned a painful lesson from this experience, that, years later, permitted you to act very differently, especially after meeting Phoebe."

"True," responded Cole, as he took a swig of water from Wolf's bottle, he noticed that it was getting late. "But it is something that still haunts me, the memories of that and other things I've done. I sometimes feel I just don't deserve what I have. It is one of the things that keep me up during the night. "

"As you found out, last month, I've done things in my past that I certainly regret. There were different reasons for doing so. Sometimes I just was in a state where I had no idea what I was doing. Others were done out of vengeance after things had been done to people with whom I had been very close." Said Wolf, not wanting to reveal the atrocity that had happened to his parents, and the actions he took afterwards.

Wolf continued. "Perhaps I shouldn't have done them, but the world isn't black and white, there is always a shade of gray, and extenuating circumstances. Around here wolves and farmers have a long history of not getting along. Farmers do bad things to wolves, wolves do bad things to farmers in revenge. It is one of those vicious cycles that I never, ever think will be resolved, Wolves are wolves, and farmers are farmers." He said, an angry, all knowing tone in his voice. "I get the feeling that the situation between witches, and whatever you are is probably something similar. Had the Barringtons not taken out whoever was in charge of the Brotherhood, perhaps the Brotherhood would not have been after the Barringtons, and you wouldn't have the skeletons you have in your closet."

"You certainly have a point, but I don't want to go there." said Cole as he got up off the ground where they were sitting, picked up the Barrington book of shadows, and the case of slugs Wolf had bought. He managed to carry both with one hand, and offered the other hand to Wolf. Wolf accepted, and then suddenly found himself being transported, in the same fashion Cole had transported him the last time. This time it wasn't to Cole's apartment; it was to a graveyard in a deeply wooded area. Wolf then looked and noticed that one of the headstones read _Estelle Barrington._

Cole put down the book of shadows, and case of slugs. A shovel suddenly appeared in his hand, and a bouquet of baby's breath and wisteria in the other. He placed part of the bouquet in front of Estelle's headstone, and the rest in front of the headstones of other members of the family. "Sometimes the best thing to do is to just burry things. It can help to break any type of vicious cycles which may exist." He said as he began to dig a hole next to Estelle's grave. He then placed the book of shadows in the hole and then carefully covered it up.

Afterwards they turned towards the wooded areas surrounding the graveyard. "Welcome to Massachusetts, the Berkshire Mountains to be exact," Cole told Wolf, as he looked around at the dense forest that surrounded them.

The next thing that appeared in Cole's hand was a thermos. As he opened it Wolf smelled the strong scent of coffee.

"Starbucks Italian Roast?" asked Wolf wondering why Cole was conjuring coffee of all things. Why did humans in this dimension have an obsession with such a disgusting tasting thing?

"If I'm going to be here all night babysitting you, I need something to keep me up," he said as he took a sip. "Tonight is not a night to start any new cycles so if you spot any humans, don't eat them. But, they have been having some deer overpopulation issues lately, so if you see one running, have a snack. If you don't get it, chances are it will be the victim of an SUV. Just remember, I'll be watching even if you don't see me, so behave. " Cole then vanished and Wolf was free to roam the forest for the night.


End file.
